1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to pet products and, more specifically, to a Pet Dish and Disposable Liner.
2. Description of Related Art
Pet food and water dishes are available in virtually all shapes and sizes, and typically present a common problem for the pet caretakers—they become soiled and are very undesirable to clean once in that condition.
Several inventions have sought to solve this problem using a variety of techniques. Birnie, U.S. Pat. No. 5,445,110 discloses a “Pet Feeding System with Disposable Inserts.” The Birnie device is a semi-spherical bowl having a stack of disposable bowl liners within it. The liners each have an adhesive tab to hold them in their place in the stack. Each liner further has a thumb notch to assist the caretaker in removing the soiled liner for disposal. Another device is the Jordan “Combined Pet Food Bowl and Disposable Liner,” U.S. Pat. No. D330,785. The Jordan device is a cylindrical bowl having a similarly-shaped liner; the liner has a protruding tab that presumably aids in the removal of the liner from the bowl. Another device is the Budd “Disposable Pet Food Dish,” U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,845. It is a bowl having a pair of rectangular bowls formed within it; each bowl has one or more dimples or “raised portions” in their walls to hold the liners in the bowls while in use to provide food and water to the pet. Koch, U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,325 is a “Feeding Bowl and Liner Therefor,” is a bowl/liner combination with horizontal and vertical recesses to retain the liner within the bowl and to aid the caregiver in pulling the liners out of the bowl. The Boehlert “Disposable Feeding Dish and Its Complementary Receptacle,” U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,594 is a cylindrical bowl having a liner, where the liner is adhered to the bowl with a temporary adhesive to prevent its pulling out while the pet is feeding. Brown “Disposable Insert Containing Pet Dish Apparatus”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,644,241 does disclose a dish and liner combination for pet feeding, however, it fails to disclose a retainer structure for holding the stack of liners from popping out. Rinally, the Bates “Dish or Plate,” U.S. Pat. No. 730,082 is simply a plate having disposable liners; there is no aesthetic value to the Bates device, and it will not work with standard disposable liners.
None of the numerous aforementioned attempts at solving the soiled food dish problem has truly provided a desirable solution. Notably lacking is a bowl/liner combination that has any aesthetic attractiveness. Furthermore, the only prior devices that included the capacity to hold a stack of liners required adhesive between each liner; making these approaches undesirable from the perspective of manufacturing, storage and shipping. Furthermore, to prevent spinning (a common problem with the basic bowl-and-liner design), these prior devices either require adhesive, or if they do have some other approach, this other approach is limited to a non-stacked liner arrangement and/or it is very difficult to overcome the anti-spin element so that the liner can be removed.
As discussed above, the instant disclosure is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 11/150,704 ('704). The invention of the '704 application sought to solve the aforementioned problems by providing a combination decorative pet dish that was configured to accept disposable liners within it. That device solved all of these prior art problems very well. Once issue that it did not adequately address, however, is the substantial cost involved to provide the custom-shaped liners described in that disclosure. This is the primary objective of the present invention, namely, to provide a pet dish and liner combination that is aesthetically pleasing, accepts readily-available liners, while also including anti-spin features, and further permitting a stack of liners to be held within the bowl without the need for supplemental adhesive or some sort of tool to remove the liners from the bowl.